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Things are busy for me this week, but I need to mention some great events happening with the site.
Lost City is finally here!
In Lost City, characters of levels 14 to 17 explore Kadralhu, a city beneath the sands. There they will contend with those who dwell within it, as well as a rival faction that wants to seize the city’s ancient power for its own. The fate of Kadralhu – and possibly the world – rests in the party’s hands.
The latest of Open Design’s 4e projects, Lost City is something that I played a part in setting up. I’d like to talk in more detail about the book later, but it needs saying that this book is full of original and evocative concepts for monsters and adventure sites. It’s built as a “sandbox”, so it’s not just a streak of endless encounters. There’s plenty of space between encounters, with a world drawn vividly enough that DMs can easily extrapolate from it and build their own adventures with it. My favorite supplements personally with so much good stuff that I feel free to use the book as is or insert elements as desired.
For example, my contribution to the book was developing the race of the oklu. The servitors of the former rulers of Kandralhu, it is a race created literally to serve, something they try to do even several generations removed from their masters. An excerpt:
Born as gift s from the goddess Kaima to the Kadrana, the reptilian oklu served the giants’ whims, assisting them in whatever they asked until Kaima could return. With their masters gone, the oklu still remain in fallen Kadralhu, faithfully serving the old agendas of their masters in hope they may one day return.Oklu are reptilian humanoids with large hooded eyes and leathery skin. An oklu’s base color is determined by what role it fulfills in oklu society. Body size also varies depending on role but trend towards slenderness.The oklu living in the Lost City currently serve the old whims and imprints of their masters. The reptilian humanoids protect and maintain all the traditions and duties given them by the Kadrana centuries ago. Within the city, the oklu can provide information to adventurers; those adventurers should be warned, however, that much of the oklu’s lore is locked in the past. The oklu know more about the city as it once was than its current state outside their communities, and speak in the present tense of areas long since destroyed.Accustomed to Servitude: Kaima created the oklu to serve. Prolonged contact with strong-willed creatures can cause the oklu to change their own personalities in accordance. The Kadrana found it awkward to use them as messengers, since the oklu sometimes found themselves obeying new masters when too long outside of the giants’ influence.No Purpose: The oklu serve the whims of their masters, which they have faithfully passed from generation to generation ever since the fall. Th e largest communities in the eastern and northern walls are set on paths dictated very long ago. In their minds, the giants have only been gone for a short time and will soon return.Impressionable: Adventurers can infl uence the oklu by their mere presence, but when they leave the oklu revert back to the lasting impression they received from the Kadrana. Explorers to the lost city of Kadralhu are advised to make friends of the oklu. Oklu can be strong and pliant allies to have while in the city, first mimicking behaviors and then actions of those who spend much time with them.Hidden in Plain Sight: Part of being the perfect servitor race is the ability to perform duties while remaining out of master’s sight. Oklu blend in with their surroundings instinctively so as to offer no inconvenience to their masters. So it is that many explorers might never even meet the oklu, simply being avoided by the unobtrusive denizens. If the visitors are deemed enough of a threat or intrude into an area oklu have been ordered to guard, they meet instead the daggers of oklu assassins attacking from the shadows.Divided By Caste: Oklu all have specifi c jobs dictated by their caste. There are three major castes—the salaa, the iness, and the lothaa—and the first two contain several sub-castes. The salaa include the warriors. The iness include workers and craftsmen. The lothaa are the scholars and teachers of the oklu.The greatest threat to oklu survival (aside from intruders) is that the iness laborers are dwindling in number. Thus there are fewer and fewer oklu able to deal with the crumbling infrastructure within oklu communities.
I’ll talk about Lost City more in the future, but I am definitely proud to have been involved with the project and feel that it’s a worthwhile purchase, whether in PDF or print.
Dungeons and Discourse Update
The chatroom is growing quite nicely! We’re getting lots of visitors and we are now starting to expand. We have a lot of top-bloggers popping in, and earlier this week Trevor Kidd from Wizards stopped in to take questions for “Rule of Three“.
One of the initiatives our member digitaldraco has taken is to work on a space for freeform roleplaying in the setting of the Nentir Vale. As we get more people in the chat roleplaying we will also look at that space as a potential spot to do pickup games with Skype and Maptools /DDI’s VTT! Draco has built an Obsidian Portal page that you should check out if you are interested. It’s been great fun so far!
If you like 4e, the chatroom is simply a great resource that you can use to ask questions from experts, get opinions and critiques for encounters/houserules, or just to get your geek on.
If you can’t stand the web client, point your IRC client to 4eatwill.net. Hope to see you soon!
Special Guest in the Chat!
This upcoming Monday, Steve Winter from Wizards of the Coast will join us to talk DDI and D&D Community! The chat will take place June 13th from 6:00 PM PDT (GMT -7) to 7:00 pm. Stop by!
Articles
For some reasons I can’t mention right now, life is keeping me tied up. I do have some great articles in the wings, in addition to some audio posts. Everything will come together as life slows down a bit. Thanks for being an excellent readership and thank you for your patience!
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
By day he is a technologist.
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